1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the disclosure relate generally to the field of wire harness fabrication tools and more particularly to a method and apparatus separating or “combing” wire bundles in the harness while allowing ergonomically efficient twisting of the entire wire harness for consolidation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Fabrication of wire harnesses for aircraft and other high technology vehicles or large scale devices requires high quality and consistency of wrapping or twisting of the wire harness for efficient packaging. As an example, DPS 1.34-51, a military specification for metal braided harnesses, requires all wires to do one complete twist every 4 to 12 inches. Harnesses are typically created by a combination of separate wire bundles each having individual wires of differing sizes and being of different size in the aggregate than other bundles in the harness. For most applications, wire harness fabrication is conducted using many manual operations.
Handling large wire harnesses can be very tiring and wrapping requirements can lead to repetitive motion injuries in some instances. Additionally, when twisting by hand accuracy of determining that all wires have been twisted to required specifications is challenging.
It is therefore desirable to tooling which provides ergonomic leveraging for twisting of wire harnesses while providing combing of individual bundles for an even wrap.
It is further desirable to provide such tooling with flexibility for extraction of the tool at division points in the harness without un-threading individual bundles through the tool.